Russian Orthodox Church wants Ivan the Terrible a Saint

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2003-06-10 11:23am

As well, Rasputin.

My thought to that is why not make Hitler a saint. Saint Adolf the Bohemian Corporal.

What is the reason for the Orthodox Church to make Ivan a saint? Lunacy? Idiocy?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-06-10 11:27am

By all accounts, he was extremely pious. Add that to the fact he killed a lot of Tartars, and they might be willing to overlook the whole terror and killing and madness bit.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-10 11:41am

Sounds like the Church to me.

Fucking Rasputin? That lecherous wierdo who JUST-WOULDN'T-DIE?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-06-10 12:25pm

Heh. Doesn't that whole "I'm invincible" routine qualify as miraculous?

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-06-10 12:47pm

didn't Rasputin fuck like 40 whores in one night? what a good christian!

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-06-10 12:54pm

I thought Rasputin had been excommunicated way back when?

Where is this news from, anyway? How about a source?

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2003-06-10 12:59pm

This runs into the Peter the Great/the Terrible argument. In Russia, "the Terrible" doesn't exactly translate the way it does here. The word can have a less negative connotation (if that makes any sense), along the lines of "the Crafty" or "the Intimidating." For certain Russian nationalists and members of the conservative aristocracy or Church, Peter and Ivan were indeed heros.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-06-10 01:58pm

I thought Ivan Grozny butchered a bunch of the church's leaders in Novgorod, why would that qualify him? "Blessed Ivan, Christian Killer"????

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-06-10 03:32pm

It's not really that strange, you know. Vlad fucking Tepes is a Romanian national hero, and he killed tens of thousands of his own people! (Probably more, relative to the population, than Ivan did.)

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-06-10 03:36pm

That's because Vlad was a very successful miltary leader against the Ottoman Turks, who were trying to conquer that area. It's the whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-06-10 03:39pm

Vympel wrote:Sounds like the Church to me.

Fucking Rasputin? That lecherous wierdo who JUST-WOULDN'T-DIE?

It was one of those "we need a steam roller fast" situations.

Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2003-06-10 03:55pm

Andrew J. wrote:It's not really that strange, you know. Vlad fucking Tepes is a Romanian national hero, and he killed tens of thousands of his own people! (Probably more, relative to the population, than Ivan did.)

IIRC he was made a national hero mainly to attract tourists, especially the vampire crowd.

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2003-06-10 04:28pm

I read it in a magazine, I think it mighht have been one of my mother's Royalty magazine's, though I did hear it somewhere else.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-06-10 06:27pm

As I recall, there's a minority movement in the Russian church that's been pushing to canonize Rasputin for some time now. Nothing has ever come of it (he's widely considered a downright heretic, and canonizing him would only damage the Russian church) and I seriously doubt that anything ever will.

What's up with all the me-tooism, anyway? I thought that, going by the principles of skeptcisim, we're supposed to make sure that the news is from a valid, verified source?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-06-10 06:36pm

Anyone got any info on the real Rapsutin? According to my only source, after overthrowing the wise and powerful czar he was sentenced to Limbo, until the lost Russian princess reclaimed the throne. I think she blew him up with fireworks or something.

Saurencaerthai · Post by **Saurencaerthai** » 2003-06-10 06:40pm

Andrew J. wrote:It's not really that strange, you know. Vlad fucking Tepes is a Romanian national hero, and he killed tens of thousands of his own people! (Probably more, relative to the population, than Ivan did.)

Then again, he also brings a good amount of tourist revenue to the country....

Saurencaerthai · Post by **Saurencaerthai** » 2003-06-10 06:52pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Anyone got any info on the real Rapsutin? According to my only source, after overthrowing the wise and powerful czar he was sentenced to Limbo, until the lost Russian princess reclaimed the throne. I think she blew him up with fireworks or something.

Here's the basic scoop from what I remember on this guy: He came as a healer, proclaiming he could treat Czarina Alexandra's son Alexis' hemophelia. Aparently, he had some effect on the kid, as it was claimed that he had less trouble with it. He also phrophecized to Alexandra that should he be killed or sent away, the Czar and family would fall.

About the guy's personal habits, well, he never bathed, ate and drank copiously, had many sexual relations, and was allowed free reign by the Czarina. I have heard of one such an example of his poor manners where he once walked into a dinner and proceeded to eat soup straight from another person's bowl with his bare hands.

There were a few who thought that he was gaining too much power, and so they devised a plan to assasinate him. They lured him to the Yussupov Palace and fed him either poisoned cakes or wine, which he consumed in mass amounts. However, after some time, it became aparent that the poison had no effect on him (there has been speculation that the strength of his stomach acid as a result of his legendary drinking may have rendered the cyanide harmless.) So, then Prince Felix Yussupov shot Rasputin at point blank range several times, and he fell to the floor. After a few moments, one of them kneeled over Rasputin to check to make sure he was dead, and as it turned out, he was not, as he grabbed the examiner by the throat and began to strangle him. After beating and shooting him some more, they dumped him in the river, which was what actually killed him.

Took a few things from here:
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~pbarry/ras2/
but most was from what I remembered, so there could be a few minor errors.

Raptor 597 · Post by **Raptor 597** » 2003-06-10 06:59pm

Well, some asren't sure about the swets. He was supposed be fasting nd did not eat the sweets. Theres no way to be sure as he murders won't implicate themselves.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-06-10 08:46pm

Rubberanvil wrote:
Andrew J. wrote:It's not really that strange, you know. Vlad fucking Tepes is a Romanian national hero, and he killed tens of thousands of his own people! (Probably more, relative to the population, than Ivan did.)
IIRC he was made a national hero mainly to attract tourists, especially the vampire crowd.

Bullshit.

A friend of mine, 1/4 Romanian on his paternal grandfather's side, said that Vlad Tepes is a hero because he scared the Turks so much that they went away and never came back.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-06-10 09:37pm

Iceberg wrote: A friend of mine, 1/4 Romanian on his paternal grandfather's side, said that Vlad Tepes is a hero because he scared the Turks so much that they went away and never came back.

His history's pretty hazy then, since the Turks did come back, and by 1530 had conquered what is now Romania, including Vlad's princedom of Wallachia.

This is "folk history", and like folk history often is, it incorporates as much fiction, prejudice and wishful thinking as fact. In Northern Ireland, for example, you will find people who swear up and down that in the rising of 1641 "conservative estmimates" have as many 100,000 protestants killed by catholics. Resposnible historians will tell you there weren't even nearly that many protestants in Ireland in 1641. "Ulster Patriots" will tell you that upwards of 1,000 men, women, and children were marched off the bridge at Portadown to drown in the river Bann (the actual figure is around 100, and most of those who perished in the seige of Portadown died of hunger and cold, not the sword). It's propaganda that got incorporated into folk memory as history. None of this stops these huge figures from being believed and quoted as gospel truth by large numbers of people. This sort of thing happens in every country.

This story of Vlad scaring the Turks back into their own borders is the same sort of folk history nonsense.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-06-11 09:44am

Ted wrote:What is the reason for the Orthodox Church to make Ivan a saint? Lunacy? Idiocy?

This is the same Orthodox Church who wants democracy abolished. Go figure.

Tosho · Post by **Tosho** » 2003-06-11 07:28pm

Vlad. A bio of Vlad Tepes.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-06-11 08:49pm

It's true that Vlad stopped Turkish invasions during his reign, and I don't think the fact that Romania was conquered afterwards should reflect poorly on him.

The story goes that as a Turkish army approched Tirgoviste they saw "the forest of the impaled"-thousands upon thousands of people slowly rotting away on giant stakes around the city. The Turks ran away toot sweet, or so the story goes.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-06-12 07:16am

I could see making Rasputin a saint, according to what we learned in Modern History, pretty much all he did was get wasted and get it on with whoever was close.

Not to mention his 12"+ dick

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-06-12 09:08am

Tosho wrote:Vlad. A bio of Vlad Tepes.

A man who killed all the poor in a fire and explaining it with "I did it so nobody would be poor"??? No wonder he has the same given name as Lenin.

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Russian Orthodox Church wants Ivan the Terrible a Saint

Russian Orthodox Church wants Ivan the Terrible a Saint

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